every face of beauty
by BiblioMatsuri
Summary: We all live in an imperfect world. Sometimes it is dirty and ugly. Even so, look closely and you will see every face of beauty, hear every voice of love. True drabbles, WIP. Assume spoilers for any/all aired episodes. Now posted: in defense of the traitor - "Zircon bends into a deepset bow."
1. close-held hands

Garnet's hands are solid and very careful. One of Steven's first memories is of baby-him petting her funny one-finger gloves. The fabric is so soft.

Pearl's hands are cold and thin, like knitting needles with joints. Amethyst's hands are kind of squidgy and sticky from all that junk food.

His dad's hands feel old, chapped and sunburned and wrinkly from the car wash.

Connie's hands are smaller than his. She pulls him up, brings him back to Earth, saves him. She's still surprised when he says thank you.

Her hands shake sometimes. Steven isn't sure how to feel about that.


	2. like hiccups

Connie curls up under a thick old blanket. The fabric is fuzzy and itches a little.

She shouldn't get in trouble. She should get good grades, keep her room clean, and not track mud inside. She does all that!

...except for staying out of trouble. She went to a party, she fought monsters, and she rode a lion into the clouds. A magic pink lion.

_Magic_. Is real. And her best friend is half magic alien. And evil gems are going to invade Earth.

Connie curls herself in tighter and tries not to laugh. She wouldn't be able to stop.


	3. smile, sandpaper

"I just took a little tumble from some rocks." She's smiling. "I'm fine, really."

Her mother tears an antiseptic wipe free from its little foil package. It unfolds into squares of filmy damp white. "I don't know what you're doing, Connie-"

"No, you don't."

"It isn't safe! You've been coming home injured too often lately. I think you should stop playing games with that 'universe' boy, and your father agrees with me."

"No one's playing games, Mom-" she hisses as the germicide fizzes on broken skin "-maybe Amethyst, but she thinks everything's a game. I don't."


	4. lost things drift

He sits at the water's edge, looking out to sea.

He'd promised Lapis he'd come back.

_what then_. There's a mean little voice. _where would she have gone. no family, no home, not even a friend_-

He was her friend! Steven knew Garnet and Pearl and Amethyst didn't believe him, but Lapis wasn't bad. She was only mean because she was hurt, like a lion with a thorn in its paw.

He should have gone back. He should have tried harder. She should have been free.

She could've come back with them.

Steven inhales salt, and the tide comes in.


	5. the world she chose

Rose Quartz was their leader. She was an inspiration to all her chosen, to each and every gem who forsook their Homeworld in favor of her.

Pearl would never doubt her. It was just... why? Why this world? Why this lonely mudball, out of all the worlds she must have seen and won and left?

Pearl listened, of course. Many times.

_Because it is beautiful. Because there is potential. Because it's full of life._

_Humans have symbols for objects and places and times. Look, there are songs in the mud._

She never understood why this was the world Rose wanted.


	6. and all of space I seem to see

The sky was green with battle-light. A full concord of ships aligned, ready in formation; all readied their weapons.

Garnet planned.

A truth: Garnet was a very good tactician, but absolutely terrible as a strategist. For too long, she had relied on her/Sapphire's precognition. She'd spent nearly her whole existence as Garnet relying on Rose as an absolute authority. She could plan, carry out a raid or lead a charge, but this was...

Still, she was needed; as a balance between Pearl's calculations and Amethyst's whimsy, if nothing else.

Up on the cliffs, Steven cried out.

Having direction, Garnet moved.

* * *

title from Isaac Asimov's "The Stars, Like Dust"


	7. far off places

I like traveling. Past the warp pad, it's all swamps and sandstorms and ice going crickety-crack under my feet. Pearl gets all hissy and upset, and Garnet acts like she's not laughing but she totally is. It's not like I'm in pain or anything!

My favorite part, though, is when we're done beating the the lights out of whatever gem-monster it was this time, and Pearl and Garnet are too busy to stop me from picking up some seriously sweet loot. Everything's got a story to tell – oh shut up _Pearl_ it's not junk, it's treasure! and it's mine.


	8. usually always most-times

Steven tells you secrets.

Lapis is hidden, not shattered. Gems are made to travel through the near-vacuum of space. Lapis doesn't need air, and has nothing to fear from water. You do.

And Steven trusts her. _Why_, because he's Steven. He's a good person, and kind and nice. He wants to help everyone. (Steven says she's scared, she's lonely. She's hurt, mad.) And Lapis tried to help him then.

You settle onto the sand, look down, and see:

A blue tear-shape, half-hidden in wet sand.

He thinks she'll wake up soon.

You don't know who you want to be right.


	9. falling is faster

But melting into Sardonyx is easier than facing Garnet with her own ill-shaped self. Her very existence was an insult to Rose, but Rose made her beautiful.

Pearl is proud of being– that she had been Rose's Pearl. Rose was all she needed; Rose was everything she needed.

Even now she is still grasping, still needy, still incomplete. Imperfect.

Nothing like Rose.

Pearl was made to serve. Even as she hates her own weakness (inferiority) she will not be ashamed of serving Rose.

Garnet isn't Rose.

Garnet still wants Pearl. That's terrifying, but that's not everything.

Garnet needs Pearl to change.


	10. sensory integrating

Sour Cream likes sweaters. Not when it's hot out, but this close to the sea that's not often. He likes the softness and the weight, and he likes the flowiness, the lining of his favorite hoodie. He likes sand, but not in his shoes.

He likes the feel of wires under his hands, the tangibility and the possibility, the melodies shaping in his mind. He likes the soft and glittery light, the sight of many people enjoying themselves; and they're dancing like dreams because of his work, his art, his mind and his skill.

He can be fun _and_ serious.


	11. be calm

This drabble was written in Feb 2017; edited and posted on May 12, 2017. (I haven't added to this collection since _2015_. Wow, that's a lot of fail.)

* * *

He calls it a Marty Party. She's pretty sure it's just drunk twentysomethings (and teens) dancing, badly, in a vacant lot by the beach. There's a view of the ocean – or pieces of it, anyway, what's visible between all the roofs and walls and high-tension wires – _so_ exciting.

There's worse reasons to stick around than boredom – like pining, or praying for some happy-story ending that'll never happen. Vidalia doesn't care about that, she's already busy _living_. Marty gets that.

She ditches her drink, adds it to the trash piling up around the fence.

Yeah, she gets it.


	12. you can do this

Written and posted on May 12, 2017. Title + italics-quotes from "I Am My Mom" and "Super Watermelon Island."

* * *

_You're wrong! _

You would know.

_The Earth needs you, Steven._

You do know; less by future vision and more by hard-worn wisdom. You, who by many accounts should have been destroyed by Homeworld for _being_.

_We believe in you._

Now, how many more times will you be left to watch,

_And Steven? _

wait,

_We love you_.

and see your loved ones fall to one-or-another inevitable loss?

_Get down here, Steven!_

You couldn't have saved Rose; not from herself-

_She wouldn't have wanted this,_

and you can't help him now.

_but I do_.

You couldn't have saved anyone.

_We'll be fine._


	13. in defense of the traitor

Zircon bends into a deepset bow.

(accusing the most-high of treason.)

That she hadn't meant any such thing,

(sacrilege.)

and very much wished she hadn't tried to misplace logic above a Diamond's will,

(counselors-at-law are not that high a caste.)

as if she thought a zircon could blame the irreproachable;

(no gem is so high.)

all her excuses are worthless.

(oh Diamonds, what was she thinking.)

Why is she still intact?

(how could it be?)

Why had the infallible Blue Diamond not shattered her disloyal gem?

(as Her Diamond wills it.)

She's not sure now.

(she doesn't want to know.)


End file.
